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Lance Hornby, QMI Agency

Mar 24, 2012

, Last Updated: 12:46 AM ET

NEWARK, N.J. - Randy Carlyle’s Maple Leafs are loathed at home, but still have some life on the road.

With James Reimer having a revival game of 43 saves, two farmhands in the lineup and missing three top-six forwards that made them so dangerous earlier this season, Toronto pulled out a 4-3 shootout win over the Devils. Nazem Kadri danced around Martin Brodeur for the winner after scoring earlier in the game.

“Three goals on Marty Brodeur and three in the shootout, you must be doing something right,” said Reimer, as the Leafs reversed two shockingly poor efforts earlier in the week.

We will point out, however, that they failed to crack 20 shots for the fourth consecutive game and gave up a two-goal lead in the third period, showing why the result only postpones the inevitable in the playoff picture. It will be even tougher against the conference leading New York Rangers at home on Saturday, but the plane ride home from Jersey was a happy one, particularly for Kadri.

“I knew I could come in and make an impact right away,” said Kadri, whose short-side shuffle beat Brodeur, following suit after Tyler Bozak and Tim Connolly. “There was a lot of relief after that one.

“The only thing that was going through my head (on the winner) was it was me, 1-on-1 with Marty Brodeur. The guy is a legend. Two of our three shooters went glove side and he wanted you to shoot there. I faked backhand over the glove and luckily, he bit on it.”

Carlyle took Marlies coach Dallas Eakins’ advice to use the creative Kadri if the shootout presented itself.

Reimer wasn’t perturbed at the team getting the third-period shakes.

“You bear down, you believe. We knew we were playing well, we took it to them the last 40 minutes,” he said.

“The (46 shots), it keeps you in the game, that’s for sure. I just tried to play big, simple and solid. Find the puck where I could and not make an educated guess where it was going and hope for the best. They’re a good team and cycle the puck well, but that said, we played very well. When there were rebounds, we cleared them. A lot of them would have been sure goals without our guys slapping the garbage out of the way.”

Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise scored on their first shootout attempts for the sixth-seeded Devils, Patrik Elias fired a puck into Reimer’s pads and then Carlyle wisely put on Kadri to bamboozle Brodeur.

It was the third straight game these two teams have gone an extra period, but the first Leafs win.

Toronto took a 2-1 lead into the third, but few observers put stock in it with how jittery they’ve been of late with games on the line. They did look to have the upper hand when ex-Devil David Steckel scored, but that only stood up a couple of minutes until Parise out-battled Jake Gardiner for a puck on Reimer’s doorstep with nine minutes to play. Adam Henrique then spun away from Mike Komisarek got a blade on Andy Greene’s point drive with 4:42 in regulation.

Reimer made the first 25 saves late into the middle period, giving the team what coach Carlyle has asked — a chance for the team to win. With that breathing room, the Leafs had a mini-blitz of two goals in 69 seconds. After some atrocious luck earlier in the game, Bozak had a Luke Schenn point shot hit Henrique and land right on his stick. With Brodeur fooled by the trajectory, Bozak had an empty net.

On the next shift, newcomer Ryan Hamilton dished to Gardiner at the point and a cruising Kadri added a perfect tip inside the post. Kadri has points in all three of his first games back from the Marlies, though sustaining it has been his problem.

The 18 shots he faced in the first period were the most Toronto has surrendered in an opening frame this season, without allowing a goal. The Bruins had 18 against Jonas Gustavsson to start an Oct. 20 game, but scored three, scuppering Toronto’s quick start to the season of 4-0-1. That seems like such a long time ago, as the Leafs have a record of 29-34-7 since.

Carlyle put Hamilton and Kadri to work on the opening faceoff with Mikhail Grabovski and had some fun driving counterpart Peter DeBoer crazy, shuffling his 11 forwards and seven defencemen. Matt Frattin sat out the game with a twisted ankle and Clarke MacArthur was shelved with an upper body injury, leading to the emergency conditions to play the Marlies. Colby Armstrong was a healthy scratch.

The Leafs came in the game having been held under 20 shots in three straight for the first time in nine years. Brodeur has had surprising difficulty against the Leafs through the years, a record of 22-18 with 10 ties or overtime losses.